Donald Hamilton - The Betrayers

However, this wasn't a normal situation. I'd been right in thinking there was something familiar about the girl. She wasn't Claire, but I'd seen her picture recently on the screen in the recognition room in the basement of a certain house in Washington, D.C. It had taken me a little while to locate the memory, but I had it now; code name Jill, station Pacific, one of our more promising young recruits in this operational area-that is to say, one of the Monk's more promising young recruits.

It could be just coincidence that she'd picked this morning and this hotel for her pre-breakfast date with the breakers, but I didn't believe it for a moment. Nor did I think I'd have to go to a lot of trouble to make her acquaintance. In fact, I had a hunch I couldn't lose her if I tried.

NAGUKI HAD MADE the morning papers. Breakfasting on the terrace outside the hotel's dining room, I read about the accident, which had occurred on the Pall, wherever that might be. Apparently I wasn't the only agent who knew how to put the traffic statistics to good use.

There was a picture of the blanket-covered body be-. side the twisted wreckage of what had been a light Ford sedan a year or two old. It could have been the second car that had tailed me from the airport yesterday. Maybe, feeling Monk closing in on him, Naguki had been trying to make contact with me. If so, he hadn't helped my situation any more than I'd helped his.

In spite of what I knew of the Monk, I was a little surprised, not at the murder-that wasn't unexpected- but at the way he'd boldly signed his name to it by his call to me. Of course, he had been trying to get me to betray myself, but still it indicated that he felt safe and powerful out here, almost invulnerable. Well, he'd always had delusions of grandeur.

"Miss, what's the Pall?" I asked the waitress.

"Pall is cliff or precipice, sir," she said. "Up there in the mountains. On the other side is very steep, the Pali. Also, the highway, very steep, the Pali Drive. Goes to windward side of island. More coffee, please?"

"Thanks," I said, wondering if she were Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, or a little of each. It was hard to tell. Anyway, she was a pretty, friendly girl with a nice smile, and she undoubtedly considered herself American, just as American as a guy who'd called himself Bernard Naguki, or for that matter, a character named Matthew Helm.

Afterward, I checked for mail at the desk and found a note from the management inviting me to a hotel-sponsored cocktail party that evening. Reading this, I laid a small bet with myself that I knew where our girl Jill would make her next move. It would save her from having to pull some corny meet-cute stunt like dropping a glove or hanky or surfboard at my feet. You can get acquainted with anybody at a cocktail party and make it look quite natural.

In any event, the initiative was obviously in the hands of the opposition for the time being. There was nothing for me to do but play tourist, so I looked up the phone number of a car-rental place. They sent a small bus to transport me to their office where, for very little money, I was provided with a crippled French Simca that could barely fight its way out into the street. I let its dying struggles carry it back onto the lot and traded it for a British Sprite at twice the rental-but at least the two-seater gave a healthy roar when I tickled it with my foot.

Also it provided me with an excuse to do some moderately progressive driving: you don't rent a sports car to stand still in traffic. Our boy Francis, alias Bill Menander, was back on the job, and I took sadistic pleasure in running him around Honolulu for most of the day, at speeds that had his little Datsun crying for help.

We saw the aquarium where a porpoise jumped through a hoop and got everybody wet and the botanical gardens where orchids grew like weeds. We spent a good deal of time in various historical museums, making a study of Hawaiian royalty. The first five kings were easy, they were all named Kamehameha. After that they started showing individuality, and I lost track of them, but I was careful not to let Francis lose track of me. He escorted me back to the hotel in time for me to change for cocktails: the invitation had specified jacket and tie.

Fully dressed according to specifications, I wandered into the party, given on a terrace covered by a trellis of giant vines in lieu of a roof or awning. I was passed from hand to hand through the receiving line and introduced to some people from New York who were no more interested in me than I was in them, but I saw Jill across the room with orchids in the long blonde hair that hung loose down her back, very striking and, in spite of her morning's swim, not stringy at all.

I was aware when she broke away from her companions, and I turned my back so she could have the satisfaction of sneaking up on me from behind. The stout woman in front of me, in a gaudy new Hawaiian garment quite similar to that worn by the pineapple-juice lady at the airport, was telling me all about crossing the Pacific on the liner Lurline. It sounded great if you liked organized fun on shipboard.

Then there were footsteps behind me and the voice of a woman on the hotel staff saying to somebody, "I'm sure you'll have a lot in common. Mr. Helm is from Washington, too."

I turned with my face ready to recognize Jill and my voice ready to make some reference to our early-morning encounter-why make it hard for the girl?-but it wasn't Jill. Jill was standing some distance away with a frustrated look on her pretty face. In front of me, smiling in a bored and world-weary way, stood a very handsome dark-haired woman wearing dark glasses that made her look like a movie star incognito. I'd never seen her before, even in photographs.

I was sure of this. She wasn't anybody you'd forget if you'd seen her once. The New Yorkers were being led away to meet some other fascinating people, leaving me alone with her. I didn't figure I'd lost anything by the trade, and Jill could wait.

I flagged down a boy with a pitcher of the rum punch that was going around, but, as I should have guessed from her aloof-not to say snooty-appearance, my new companion couldn't drink from the common pot. She bad to have Scotch, and a particular brand of Scotch at that. We retired to the bar that had been set up in a corner of the terrace for the hard-to-please.

When her glass had been properly replenished, she made a small gesture of raising it to me, drank, and nodded approvingly. We stood there for a while in silence: two strangers forced into each other's company with nothing much to say. The lady's attitude made it clear that she didn't really give a damn whether she talked with me or not. As for me, after years of getting acquainted with people for devious purposes, I find it difficult to do the social bit for its own sake.

At last I said, "I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name."

"McLain," she said. "Isobel McLain."

I glanced at her left hand. "Mrs. Isobel McLain?"

She smiled briefly. "Yes. Mrs. Kenneth McLain, to be exact."

"My name's Helm, Matthew Helm," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"Have you been in the Islands long, Mrs. McLain?"

Well, you can requisition a few yards of that dialogue from stock and cut it to fit. She hadn't been in the Islands long. In fact, she'd only arrived a couple of days ago. She smiled again and gestured toward her smart, sleeveless black cocktail dress.

"Not long enough to go native, Mr. Helm, as you can see. I'm still breaking the rules by wearing real clothes. They'll probably throw me out of the hotel if I don't buy a muu-muu pretty soon, but these primitive costumes leave me cold."

I had a hunch that a lot of things and people left Mrs. McLain cold, but somehow she made it seem like a challenge. The implication was that, for a very few special things and people, she could be quite warm indeed, and that it was very much worth an effort to find out if you were one of the favored few.